All Russian political parties are basically centrist. This was announced today by Head of the Political Psychology Department of Saint Petersburg State University Alexander Yuriev, while speaking at a round-table meeting that was held at the Rosbalt news agency. He said that this was the conclusion reached by specialists who carried out a research programme entitled Objective classification of the political parties and politicians of Russia based on their party manifestoes and public speeches. 'It will be impossible to have any kind of political discussion in our country in future as all the political parties have become so centrist,' the professor said. 'It is virtually impossible to discern any difference between their policies.'

Mr Yuriev went on to say that 'if a party has any real ambitions of getting into power it must consider about 16 different state problems and not 3-4 as they do at the moment. Russian politicians do not think about global problems and they do not even have anything to talk about with their foreign colleagues,' said Mr Yuriev. 'As a result there is no respect for the Russian political system.'

More than 5.8 million people voted for Nicholas Maduro at the presidential election in Venezuela. This is more than a quarter of registered voters. Why did those people vote for the man, who, as Western media write, took Venezuela to the brink of collapse?